Jails and Prisons

This month, President Barack Obama commuted the long sentences of 46 federal prisoners convicted of drug crimes, and over the next few days he laid out his vision for criminal justice reform in speeches to the NAACP and at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma. Prison reformers hailed these events as important steps forward in the effort to rein in the sprawling U.S. prison system. I don't think they should be so happy. Obama's speeches, unfortunately, explicitly emphasized one of the most problematic myths standing in the way of true penal reform, and the commutations implicitly did the same. In all three instances, Obama suggested that we can scale back...

Related "Jails and Prisons" Articles

The Baltimore City Detention Center needed to close. Any discussion of Gov. Larry Hogan's surprise announcement Thursday that he was shuttering the facility needs to start with that. Yes, he should have consulted with the mayor and key members of the...

Jail reform advocates on Friday cheered Gov. Larry Hogan's decision to close the long-troubled Baltimore City Detention Center but said concerns about the city's correctional complex remain.
Officials from the American Civil Liberties Union and the...

When the Baltimore City Jail opened in 1859, one spectator called it "the handsomest jail I ever saw."But praise for the Gothic Revival-style facility at 410 E. Eager St. did not last. By 1885, The Baltimore Sun was reporting complaints about...

Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that he will immediately shut down the decrepit Baltimore City Detention Center, moving inmates to nearby facilities and ending a long-standing "black eye" for the state.
The Republican governor said the Civil...

When Gov. Larry Hogan decided to close Baltimore's long-troubled men's jail, he didn't call members of a state commission who had studied the issue. He didn't call the mayor of Baltimore. He just did it."You don't do this by committee," said...

Last week President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. On Thursday, Mr. Obama traveled to the medium-security El Reno Federal Correctional Institution near Oklahoma City to call for major reforms to the nation's...

The Maryland Board of Public Works postponed a vote Thursday on a proposal by the Hogan administration toeliminate 63 jobs in the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.The board's three members— Gov. Larry Hogan, Comptroller...

The Hogan administration is moving to abolish 63 positions — some through layoffs — in the department that runs the state's prisons and parole and probation service.
The administration plans to ask the Board of Public Works Thursday to approve its...

Harford County's sheriff is seeking federal authority and aid to conduct a more comprehensive review of the immigration status of people arrested in the county and booked at the local detention center.
According to an announcement released Tuesday,...

Despite decades of lawsuits and settlements aimed at forcing the Baltimore City Detention Center to provide proper health care to those recently arrested or serving short sentences, advocates for detainees returned to court because they say conditions...

The Hogan administration said Tuesday it is providing a $500,000 federal grant to programs in county jails to treat inmates with a non-narcotic, nonaddictive medicine that it hopes will help wean them off heroin and related drugs.The Governor's Office...

Steve Moyer can't stand the cold, or winter, so when he moved to Florida in 2013 to become a deputy police chief, he was never coming back.
He and his wife got rid of all their winter clothes and furniture and headed for Sarasota, "a beautiful...

Two dozen inmates sat in a makeshift classroom on a recent afternoon at the Baltimore City Detention Center getting a crash course in civics. Instructor Meg Ward had written Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's name on a whiteboard, explaining the structure...

When I first visited the Baltimore City Detention Center in 1999, I found an archaic, decaying facility that held people in grim cells with no direct natural light. The detention center held many children who were charged as adults, and they suffered some...

The Baltimore County Detention Center was locked down and closed to visitors for more than a day this week after a fight involving a dozen inmates, county officials confirmed Friday.
Jail staff found five weapons made of ink pens in the day room where...

Teenagers awaiting trial on adult charges in Baltimore are being kept in solitary confinement far too long — up to 143 days in one case, according to a highly critical review by the U.S. Justice Department's Division of Civil Rights.
Federal...

Two former corrections officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center have been sentenced to prison terms for smuggling drugs and other contraband as part of the Black Guerrilla Family racketeering conspiracy at the jail, federal prosecutors announced...

Dozens stood singing Sunday in the shadow of the Baltimore City Detention Center, its stone walls and barbed wire fence representing a system the protesters said had oppressed them for too long.
"Well I walked down to that city jail, and I took back...

I have no sympathy for Derrick Jones and other employees at The Baltimore City Detention Center who allowed themselves to be corrupted by the Black Guerrilla Family ("Jail supervisor, National Guardsman sentenced to 20 months in BGF case,"...